Despite all she’d been through, her shoes were still shining. Shops had shuttered, society had crumbled and humanity was down to a handful. Yet her black-laced shoes did not have a speck on them.

She rested her tired feet on the bus seat in front of her. Around her, silence reigned. The only audible sound was that of her shoes gently tapping the metal to the beat of the emergency sirens in her head.

In a few days she’d run out of canned food. In a few days she’d be forced to make the dreaded choice. Stay in town and stay safe. Or take the walk along the freeway to Huntsville, after climbing over the rotting corpses that littered the off-ramp.

She hated making decisions. It paralyzed her. Rather not choose at all than to make a bad choice. She was brought up that way by her parents and now…